House conservatives hit President Obama on guns

Even before President Barack Obama rolls out a series of proposals to curb gun violence in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shootings, conservative House Republicans are bristling.

More right-wing Republicans are voicing fierce opposition to the expected 19 executive orders on guns that Obama is preparing to announce Wednesday, along with legislation to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Though details of the orders were unclear, some Republicans have already declared them a gross breach of executive authority.

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“The more onerous that they are, the more we have a chance of having a revolt all across this country,” said conservative Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), no friend of Obama’s who voted for ex-Rep. Allen West as House speaker for the 113th Congress. “There is a tremendous potential for a horrendous public backlash against the president if he continues the policies that he has been doing of trying to go around Congress, create law and be a dictator like he’s been doing.”

Both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have made clear the administration thinks it’s within its purview to skip the legislative process and impose unilateral changes.

“I’m confident that there are some steps that we can take that don’t require legislation and that are within my authority as president,” Obama said at a Monday press conference. “And where you get a step that has the opportunity to reduce the possibility of gun violence then I want to go ahead and take it.”

Congressional Democrats seem open to letting the president move ahead without them.

“I think the president to the extent that he has executive powers to deal with this issue, to try to make Americans safer, both has a responsibility and an intent to do so,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said. “I think the executive of our nation pledged to keep Americans safe, not only abroad but here as well, I think he would be well-advised to take such action as appropriate.”

Though details were foggy, even the idea of executive orders from the White House was enough to set off alarms in Republican quarters. On the more extreme end, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) threatened to introduce articles of impeachment against the president if he implements executive orders on guns.

“I will seek to thwart this action by any means necessary, including but not limited to eliminating funding for implementation, defunding the White House and even filing articles of impeachment,” Stockman said.

Stockman added that Obama is launching an “attack on the very founding principles of this republic.”

“The President’s actions are an existential threat to this nation,” Stockman said in a statement. “The right of the people to keep and bear arms is what has kept this nation free and secure for over 200 years. The very purpose of the Second Amendment is to stop the government from disallowing people the means to defend themselves against tyranny. Any proposal to abuse executive power and infringe upon gun rights must be repelled with the stiffest legislative force possible.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who is chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said executive orders should be used only to implement existing laws.